Guppy breeding advice

This is a discussion on Guppy breeding advice within the Livebearers forums, part of the Freshwater and Tropical Fish category; -->
Hi, I have a 30 gallon freshwater tank filled with primarily guppies and a few neon tetras. I recieved the tank with adult guppies ...

Hi, I have a 30 gallon freshwater tank filled with primarily guppies and a few neon tetras. I recieved the tank with adult guppies already in it and lots of little guppy fry. My fry are starting to mature and i don't want to encourage incest, but I have nowhere to put the almost adult fry. So my question is what are some of the negative effects that incest could cause for the population of my tank and is really that big of an issue to worry about?

Hi, I have a 30 gallon freshwater tank filled with primarily guppies and a few neon tetras. I recieved the tank with adult guppies already in it and lots of little guppy fry. My fry are starting to mature and i don't want to encourage incest, but I have nowhere to put the almost adult fry. So my question is what are some of the negative effects that incest could cause for the population of my tank and is really that big of an issue to worry about?

All of todays fancy guppy types are imbreed beacause way back they would take the best looking colored fry from feeders and (dispose of rest) and breed back to the best looking parents but would stop only after imbreed illnesses came and they would claim the new guppies born a new breed they did this for color genes and patterns so if yours are feeders you have nothing to worry about until you start to get fancy fry then you know the strains are powerful and have undergone same treatment as guppies did before they were decared fancys ... but if you already have fancys be cautious.

"Incest" isn't the right term. Fish aren't creatures who have any understanding of family. Inbreeding or line breeding are the right terms, and this is a method often used by breeders to get certain traits to reliably appear or be enhanced, etc. You can also get some really freaky throwbacks, but regardless, this isn't something you need to feel icky about.

If you allow too much inbreeding to occur things such as weaker fish, bent spines in fish, shorter lifespan, and a variety of other possible deformities, it usually isn't too big of a problem as long as you try and keep them apart and add a completely unrelated fish's genes into the mix for a generation or two. (this helps strengthen the lines)

Inbreeding (with my stock) is usually controlled by not buying all of my fish from one stockist, plus I never keep any of my fry, these are split up and given to various stockists/ customers.
If I want to buy , say 6 fish, they will be bought from 3 stockists,,,2 from each.
You can never stamp out inbreeding, but with a little bit of forward planning you can achieve a healthy stock in your tank.
As a footnote, every now and then, try and buy some wild caught stock to help to reduce inbreeding.

I've heard many things about the incest in fish , however most are not true.

Your biggest problem with guppies interbreeding (keep in mind that most of the weak or deformed ones will get eaten), is that their are no new genes entering the population, so if two deformed ones breed you risk running a line of deformed guppies.